Geez Louise! Color me shocked. I just looked at the numbers for my reluctance series WIPs. The primary WIP, Courier, is up to 73K. Fully novel length and over ¾ done. Moon, the quiescent secondary WIP, is 87K and half done (maybe splittable). Fighter, the prizefighter novel is 33K and is a rewrite from another media, so I can guarantee I can complete it Accomplice (same character two years later), was supposed to be a novella but is barely ½ complete and already 27K.

Maybe I will have an inventory to sell relatively soon. Feeling pretty good right now.

Don't ask me tomorrow, though.

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Work on Beta Reader Revisions. Finish chapter in WIP. Work on Beta Reader Revisions. Finish chapter in WIP. Work on Beta Reader Revisions. Finish chapter in WIP. Work on Beta Reader Revisions. Finish chapter in WIP…

WIP won. Finished a hard passage.

If you wondered why I haven't be replying to the writer's challenges regularly, now you know I'm busy.

#writing #writer #author #writersOfMastodon #writingCommunity

Check out Ofelia Grand

MM Contemporary

Ofelia Gränd is Swedish, which often shines through in her stories. She likes to write about everyday people ending up in not-so-everyday situations, and hopefully also getting out of them. She writes contemporary, paranormal, romance, horror, Sci-Fi and whatever else catches her fancy. ...

https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/ofelia-grand/

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Speed Run

As children we think we have forever.
As adults we think of death never.
As elders we know life is soon severed.

Try to complete the lesson before you die
Because each life is #timed.

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#ScribesAndMakers 2025.11.25 — Have you ever DJed? Would you want to?

Author here. I became fascinated with DJing after my love for electronica grew. It was amazing to watch them mixing under the lights controlling and stoking the dancing audience with vinyl and amplifier and paddle switches in the few club and party situations I attended.

Then I got an idea to write a story about a singer who started out as a DJ in her teens, after an encounter with a new demon lord, her swearing fealty moments before it being transformed into something nearly angelic. Nothing can convince her she's not evil, despite her actions that show otherwise.

When I attended an SF convention with a room party that hired a DJ, I hung out at the turntables. I got a chance to discuss what it felt like, watch techniques, discuss a bit of philosophy, and learn the jargon.

I ended up writing two novelettes, two novellas, and a short story with the DJ who becomes a famous DJ then mega celebrity singer in her everyday life. It is a fantasy world, of course, and she deals with her self-perceived evil in a self-destructive manner, never accepting her actions that save many lives are actually heroic. In the last story she meets the transformed demon lord, but I shan't say what she does. 😋

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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It sounds a bit iffy, but when you think about it this is pretty good advice 🤔😁

@galacticwriters @writers @writers
@writingbooks @keepwriting @aiop

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#WordWeavers Nov 25/11: Does your Current MC share any traits with you?
I’m sure… although my approach to character development has vanishingly little to do with the enumeration of ‘traits’.
A lot of my MCs are young adults and more than half are female, so obviously we have a lot in common… 😉
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#WritersCoffeeClub 25/11: What are some tips you can share to avoid 'clunky' phrasing?
Everyone says read the work aloud, but if that’s awkward, try exporting to a different format, or just changing font etc so the document looks different. (Supplementary tip: use Paragraph Styles so it’s quick and easy to make changes across a whole MS.)
After all, most readers will experience the book as text, not audio.
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#ScribesAndMakers Nov 24. If you're a coder, do you also code in your spare time? If you're not a coder, would you want to learn how if you had the time?

I would like to learn how to muck around in Linux, things like config files. There's so much you can do with those! I'm not getting all the use out of my computer that I could.

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#PennedPossibilities 854 — What genres might you try outside of your chosen one(s)? Is there anything specific you would like to work on?

My recent work is more spicy (❤️‍🔥🌶️), though now that I think about it, it's more realistically human and less delicate. Getting this part of the human experience right is what I am working on, craft-wise.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#PennedPossibilities 855 — MC POV: Who is one person you would never want to see again? Why?

Easy to answer. She'd want to see Boss Mead, the antagonist, gone, of course that would be with the condition that the blackmail he holds over her is gone, too. Were she to think it through logically, not her strong suit considering her jock persona, she'd want never to see Rainy Days, the main series antagonist, again. Turns out she's going to be in a deadly fight with one of them. Shhh! It's a secret.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#WordWeavers 2025.11.24 — What’s the strangest animal product your MCs eat?

Squid chips, fried fish. Keep this in the context that she's a day angel and needs extra protein because of her wings. Most of humanity is ovo-vegatarian. My notes indicate land locked day angels eat farm raised insects, but I doubt I am going there.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.11.24 —How do you make sure a reader has room to process and absorb ideas?

Sometimes it is better not to make room. If you take the reader for a breathless wild ride, there's plenty of time afterward to think about all those subliminal goodies.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2025.11.23 —What's your niche?

Women acting badly, until you realize society has left them no choice but to do so, and other such gender subversive adjacent topics. I am a #gender #fiction #author. The genre is either #fantasy or #sf.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#Writephant A4 Do you write interesting or rare talents into your characters? What talents have you chosen and why?

I highlight the difference between Incanted magic (you have to speak the words of the spell to cast it) and Innate magic (you don't have to say a word, the magic happens, even when you don't want it to).

Imagine having Innate necromancy, and just trying to walk past a graveyard...

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#ScribesAndMakers 2025.11.24 — If you're a coder, do you also code in your spare time? If you're not a coder, would you want to learn how if you had the time?

I prefer programmer or, if you want to be corporate, software developer. I have been programming longer than I have been writing, since I was 16 versus since 18. I learned WATFIV FORTRAN in a weekend when offered the ability to program using punch cards FOR FREE when I was a teen. My college love was APL. I became very good a C and good at all of the C-ish aspects of C++, and made a living do that. Often I enjoyed it. Most recently, I fell in love with Javascript—not Typescript, may it rot in the 7th hell. Since I have retired, I haven't written one line of code, and am happy for it—though I have done some metadata trying to compile an iPadOS project (Emerald Observatory) that went open source. Writing is and has always been my avocation.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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photographer chef cooking
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It's the top of the next hour, and the official questions for #Writephant are all posted. Please continue to chat about your unique and rare talents on the hashtag!

Now it's time for self-promo! Feel free to post whatever fits in the character count.

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#Writephant Q5. Have you or your characters ever done a talent show with your/their unique talent?

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#Writephant Q4. Do you write interesting or rare talents into your characters? What talents have you chosen and why?

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#Writephant Q3. Presumably, we're all here because our writing is up for public consumption. Do you also take your other talents to the public?

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